Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6

1

6 • NAME ON THE BULLET

by

George G. Gilman

Terry Harknett

Spring Acre

Springhead Road

Uplyme

Lyme Regis

Dorset DT7 3RS

01297-445380

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An EDGE Western --• --85,000 Words

For

All those fans who have

been on Edge

for so long

CHAPTER • 1

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OCTOBER HAD started out cold and gotten colder as fall lengthened toward winter
and for many days now Edge had been hankering to move on from the town of Brogan Falls. To put behind him this northern California chill and head out. But he could not leave until after he took care of some business of a personal nature. For he had given his word to Elliot and Martha McGowan that he would stay for the wedding of their daughter: and if he had retained few other idealistic qualities as he grew older and not much wiser his given promise was still sacrosanct - for most of the time.

So this uncomfortably crisp mid-October afternoon he was to be a part of the congregation gathering in the tiny white painted clapboard First Presbyterian Church of Brogan Falls. A church that gleamed in bleak sunlight at the southern end of the optimistically named First Street that was the only street in the small community that had been his home for the summer. It was a Saturday and like many other recent days it had dawned brightly to offer false hope of warmth that was never forthcoming. But at least it was not raining and neither was a biting wind gusting down Stony River Valley. Which in the opinions of many local folk crowding into the church meant that it was a pretty fine day for a wedding at this time of the year in this part of California.

The citizens of the small town and the surrounding country were decent people: all of them looking their best on a day of celebration. Such occasions came infrequently to them and as he idly watched from a distance the elegantly gowned women, the neatly suited men and the well scrubbed children converge on the church in the far corner of the low walled cemetery Edge was hard put to recognise some that he surely knew by sight and others by name. So out of character did they look, not dressed as they usually had been during the five months he worked as a hired hand on the McGowan place.

He stood outside the fieldstone wall that bounded the south side of the well-tended graveyard, un-stylishly dressed himself in a long past its best sheepskin coat and misshapen Stetson, both dark in hue. Underneath the topcoat was a blue jacket that did not match his faded grey pants, a black and white check shirt and a red kerchief. His un-spurred black boots were as much in need of replacing as the rest of his clothes and he planned to attend to this as soon as he reached a town where the money earned doing summer work would buy better than was available in the stores of Brogan Falls.

What was beneath the worse-for-wear clothing could not be cast off and replaced,
damnit!
This was a man well into his middle years who was past his best in most things and about ready to admit it: at least to himself. Six feet three inches tall and these days a little overweight even for that stature, with much grey in the once jet black hair upon his head, the underplayed moustache and amid the bristles of his early afternoon stubble. But the basic structure of his face had been little altered by the process of ageing some way beyond fifty years.

Features formed by the mingling of blood from the lines of a Mexican father and a Scandinavian mother that had resulted in dark skin, glittering ice blue eyes, a faintly aquiline nose, a slightly aggressive jaw and vaguely sunken cheeks under highly set bones. A combination that could still be considered either somewhat handsome or almost ugly depending upon how somebody saw the latent threat that seemed always present. Even when the thin lips parted to reveal well matched teeth in a smile that never quite took full control of eyes permanently narrowed under hooded lids.

He stood where he did because he was smoking a cigarette: and knew it would not be considered seemly to do this within the boundaries of the church property by the Reverend Henry Beck and several of the more pious members of the strait-laced preacher’s regular congregation. Some of the cold pinched people saw him and signalled a greeting, smiled or nodded in his direction. But none beckoned for him to come join the line being formally welcomed into the church by the fifty some, short, pot-bellied, fleshy-shouldered and bulging-eyed Beck.

Every now and then one of the uncomfortably self-conscious men wearing a freshly pressed suit and necktie directed an envious glance toward the clearly contented Edge. But a rasped rebuke from his female companion or a frown from the shiny-faced preacher was sufficient to quell each man’s desire for a smoke and he dutifully headed into the church: from which came organ music that to Edge’s ear sounded more appropriate to a funeral than a wedding.

It was back in late May, the weather a good deal warmer than now, when he rode in off the timber-flanked Sacramento Turnpike from the south. And saw this verdant valley criss-crossed by a narrow river meandering from the north east to the south west and the trail angling on a straighter course from the south east to the north west. A fine looking piece of terrain that had attracted a handful of people to settle it: establish two farms and a cattle ranch from what he was able to see at first glance. While some others not drawn to work the land or raise livestock had set up a handful of business enterprises in mostly clapboard buildings aligned at wide intervals along both sides of the trail that became a street for a mile or so. This was the town of Brogan Fall that was named for a nearby two hundred yards long stretch of white water rapids that interrupted the gentle flow of the Stony River to the north of the community.

Such details he was to learn later. Likewise that the two houses across from the church and the cemetery that marked one extent of First Street were those of the Reverend Beck and Doc Driscoll. Beyond several vacant lots on both sides of the street was a meeting hall on the left, at the corner of the track that led to the McGowan farm and diagonally across from this the schoolhouse and play yard, opposite the Trust Bank. More vacant lots and then there was Emerson’s Hardware Store on the right side of the street and further along the law office directly across from Mann’s Grocery. Then a timber bridge spanned the Stony River that was no more than a shallow stream below the rapids that bubbled gently at this early summer time of the year. And beyond the bridge was the start of the Washington Trail. The only business establishment within town limits on the far side of the river was O’Brian’s Blacksmith Forge that doubled as the stage line depot. While the Nelson ranch sprawled northwards from the trail to the distant crest of the gently rising valley side. This was all of Brogan Falls Edge was able to see on first impression the day he approached and rode into town. But he discovered later that out of sight among and beyond the stands of timber that spread to east and west of the Sacramento Turnpike there were a half dozen more farms. Whose owners, their families and hands provided much needed additional custom to keep the stores and other town enterprises in business. It was not the kind of community where many passing through travellers stopped over for long and almost the only people to stay in Brogan Falls for more than a stage halt were the summer hands who arrived annually to work on the Nelson ranch or one of the farms. Men who were considered honorary citizens during the May to September period they worked and spent money here.

Without having to ask, Edge learned much about the town and its people that first afternoon when he stepped into Earl Mann’s grocery to replenish his supplies of tobacco, hard tack, coffee and salt. Entered the aromatic premises at a time when the middle aged, tall and skinny, bald-headed, gap-toothed, leather-aproned owner was in earnest conversation with a customer diametrically opposite in appearance.

He was a few years younger, short and solidly built, with a fine of head of blond hair, a weather-beaten complexion and button bright green eyes. Had the gnarled look of a manual worker as opposed to the soft and pale skinned Mann who did not deal in the kind of merchandise that required heavy labour in the open air. They were drinking beer at either side of a bar counter comprised of two ten feet long planks of warped and stained timber stretched between a pair of ancient barrels. This in a far corner of the large room overcrowded with a grocer’s stock in trade. Mann was obligingly eager to sell a new customer more than a beer and did much animated talking about the town and its citizens, the itinerant workers who helped out the valley farmers and Owen Nelson during the busiest time of the year. And enabled storekeepers like him to make a meagre living.

Finally the point of the seemingly idle chatter was reached when the other customer in the store made a contribution to the largely one-way exchange by introducing himself as Elliot McGowan, just such a valley farmer. Told the stranger to town that he was going to be short handed this year because he had gotten a letter by last week’s northbound stage from the two brothers who had worked on his place in recent summers. This year they had chosen instead to head south and seek regular full-time employment on another new railroad that was planned to be built between the east and west coasts. So, McGowan said, how would Edge like to earn himself some cash for a few months farm work?

It was getting to be late in the day and the prospect of a home cooked supper followed by a night’s sleep under a house roof appealed strongly to Edge. Especially after he was invited to accept such eagerly offered hospitality with no strings attached and make his decision in the morning. The clincher the following day was the added inducement of getting paid time and a half because, McGowan reasoned, the two of them would need to work half as hard as usual to make up for two absent men: and to a fair-minded employer extra work was worth extra pay. Thus did Edge stay over that night in the comfort of the McGowan house and then for all the other nights since. Remained there a final week for just board and lodging because the work had run out but he had accepted an invitation to be at Julia McGowan’s wedding to the local banker

Now as the Reverend Beck moved into the church doorway behind two breathless latecomers, he signalled that Edge should direct his attention along First Street to where the McGowan buggy had turned into view from beyond the meeting hall.

And Edge arced away his cigarette butt and eased himself over the low wall, grimacing at a mild stab of muscular pain in his lower back. Then moved carefully among the wellscrubbed gravestones aligned on the neatly trimmed grass, irked that after just a week of relative inactivity he still felt this twinge of discomfort from the summer of unaccustomed manual labour.

As he removed his hat and stepped into the church he saw he had been right with one of his idle musings while he watched the wedding guests gather. This that if the population of Brogan Falls had been much larger and they were mostly practising Christians, the Reverend Beck would have needed much bigger premises for his regular Sunday services. Uncomfortably full, the building was furnished with the plain and simple basic necessities of country town low church worship: but today the normally spartanly decorated interior was bedecked with vases of flowers, their scents competing with those of wood polish and lye soap.